The Monster-Hunter passes another crate to the Acrobat, then looks up at Lilith.

"Oh hi! So you're actually joining us? I'm really excited to get to know you!" She moves quickly, just a bit quicker than a human should, darting close to Lilith with an eager smile.

There is obviously some sort of catch, they're too perfect otherwise. Not that she has the self-preservation to stop herself from winking back at the Acrobat.

She startled slightly at the Huntress. "Yes! I'll be joining you. It'll be a pleasure to get to know you." She practically purrs the word.

She blushes a bit and smiles warmly, bouncing in place and speaking quickly. "Did the Captain already give you the tour? Did you see my babies? Aren't they great?" Then her head whips over to Sable. "Oh Skip are we—?"

"Yes, Rubes, we're doing names," Sable replies, grinning indulgently. "I've got a good feeling about this one."

She nods and smiles and turns back to Lilith. "I'm Ruby! I built the custom guns, and I help Sable with the ammo."

A silver glint flashes off her peligin eyes as she speaks.

"I saw the guns, I'd love to hear all about them."

"Oooh yay!" She bounces some more, then pauses. "Oh right we need to finish loading first."

And she darts sheepishly back to the Lookout for another crate of wine.

Maya and Sable each take crates and start up their legs of the crate-passing brigade, leaving Lilith in the middle.

"Ah, yes." She hefts the crates as they come. She strains a little. She's not exactly in shape. She moves to help with the rest of the cargo, passing some to the Skipper.

And between them all, they can get all the crates of wine stowed reasonably quickly.

"Ah, that is better," the Figurehead comments as she sets the last box into place. "There is something viscerally satisfying about a full hold."

"Maybe it's the sense of purpose?" Ruby suggests, bouncing up slightly to peck a kiss to Maya's cheek shyly, "Or maybe just the fullness itself?"

"Hmm. I am unsure. Perhaps some of both." She hugs Ruby firmly and leads the way out of the hold.

"Speaking o' fullness, how do we feel about dinner? Got plenty of fresh produce, since we just came off a Canal run."

"Mm, that sounds good." She sidles up to the Huntress. "So about those munitions."

The Lookout snickers. "Have fun nerd-flirting," she teases, heading into galley to start on a stew.

The Acrobat ruffles Ruby's hair, heading off with Sable and Maya to cast off.

Ruby blushes at the teasing, but doesn't let that stop her, and turns to Lilith. "Come up on deck I wanna show you! The key's the special steel I made."

"What a crew." She follows. "You'll have to tell me how you all met, I bet it's a fun story."

"We could tell that over dinner maybe, yeah!" Her steps are light and quick, excitement bleeding into her motions. "So it all starts with the steel. I don't use normal steel to make these guns. I smelt it all myself in our forge in Port Carnelian, because it's not the kinda steel anyone sells. I call it stygian steel."

"Well, I'd love to know how the bones of zee-beasts are involved. I'm assuming?"

"Mhm!" As they approach the deck gun, a glint that one might've previously dismissed resolves into an intricate pattern reminiscent of Damascus steel, peligin shadows streaked through with silvery gleam. "The whole process needs Correspondence-engraved furnaces and crucibles, but if you mix stygian ivory in with the coke and the iron when you're blasting it, you can draw some of the death out of the ivory, making a stygian pig iron. 'Course, doing that activates it, kinda, takes it out of the safe form it was in while it was bound up in the ivory."

"Do not touch stygian pig iron with your bare hands, by the way," she adds with a sheepish grin. "That stuff's not good for you at all."

"But once you've got the stygian pig iron, then you melt that with flux and another iron or steel in a Correspondence-engraved crucible, and the result at the end of your crucible process is stygian steel. It's barely safe to touch bare-handed, much harder than normal steel, but much more resilient too. It can take bigger charges in the shells, and esoteric charges when we wanna use those, without warping or cracking. And it passes on a little of that death to every shot that passes through the barrel, making everything a little more lethal and corrosive."

"Madness." She whispers. "If I didn't think I'd burst into flames I'd ask to take a look at the crucible in question. I can almost picture it in my mind's eye, the death of the long dead zee-beast etched into each and every shell."

And for some reason, she can envision something even more demented. A man's reckless passion, fired like a spear into the heart of a mountain. She blinks at the thought. "How fresh is the Ivory you use?"